Pausanias, an author from Asia Minor who lived around the year 175, told the story of how the Cretans, who were allied to Sparta, captured Aristomenes of Messenia. They took him to a farmhouse where a girl and her mother lived. The day before the arrival of the prisoner the girl had dreamt that wolves had brought a lion without claws to their farm. The girl had stuck claws on him, so that he could tear the wolves apart. When Aristomenes was brought to the house the girl remembered her dream. She got the Cretans drunk, stole the dagger of the one who was sleeping the most soundly, cut Aristomenes’ bonds and liberated him.

Caucig’s depictions after literary and historical sources are difficult to identify, because he usually chose stories which are no longer known today. We do not know whether any other European painter depicted this scene. The French painter J.-J. François Le Barbier l’Aîné depicted another story about Aristomenes, also by Pausanias (IV 17, 1).

Caucig’s painting is first mentioned in 1801, which supports a dating around that year or ante quem. There are six studies for this painting in the Graphisches Kabinett of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna. They are in black and white chalk and depict the heads, hands, feet and postures of the individual figures (Inv. Nos. 1411, 1412, 1481, 1482, 1490 and 1499).

Their excellent state of preservation bears evidence to the quality of the technique. The artist has caught the psychology of the figures, emphasising their individual feelings, demonstrating his familiarity with the psychological and physiognomic texts of the Enlightenment.

Another example (128 x 170.2 cm), probably also by Caucig, was on sale at a Phillips auction in London on 6 Dec. 1994, No. 31, as the work of Nicolas André Monssiau.